kgallen

Hi Dave, Fat Frog was designed when most venues had mostly generics (lamps on dimmers) plus maybe a few movers (MAC500 and the like) and Fat Frog was great for this (exactly why I have/had mine). These days the split is different. I have about a 50/50 split of generics and "complex" fixtures like LED PARs and movers - and it's only moving in one direction and that is not towards "generics". These "complex" fixtures of course have a much more complicated control plane. No longer one "knob" per light but 4 upwards. This is why the "fader per channel" type desks are a little limited these days for anything but the smallest simplest rigs. On DMX counts, my generics are fully handled by 24 DMX addresses. My other fixtures take several hundreds (which is why FLX is now my desk). Sounds like the "perfect" desk for you would be an FLX S24. But then the spondoolies come into play! Back on your Fat Frog, you're pretty much there. Why not put your 12 most important PARs on the fixture section then the other 4, maybe with a simpler DMX setup, onto the generics faders? FF is still a capable (and extremely reliable) desk, so I wouldn't be going near a skip with it any time soon. Mine is still in the shed, it's not going in a skip. Kevin

Dave This is never going to work how you think - on any lighting desk. You’re not repatching faders you’re moving the DMX address where your fixtures live. In Fat Frog in wide mode you have 48 faders (these are one control channel each) plus you have the 12 fixtures control on the right. The 12 fixtures can be much more complicated beasts - one fixture has brightness, colour, beamshape, position etc. So if you want individual control of every one of your 8 channel parcans you can get at most 48/8=6 on the faders plus another 12 on the fixtures bank. So that would give you up to 18 of your parcans all with independent control of all 8 DMX channels on the parcan. It will be a bit clunky to drive though, using a mixture of faders and fixture controls. However you will be able to record what I understand you want. You can of course "double-up" by either setting more than one parcan at the same DMX address or using multiple patching on the Fat Frog. Or, do you need to use the 8 channel mode on the parcans? Is there a lower channel count mode that still offers all the features you want but could be better fit between the 48 faders or the 12 fixture controls? Maybe only some of your parcans you need "total control" - use the fixture panel for this, much easier to set up colour and strobes etc. Then put any leftovers onto the faders - which will be a more clumsy control surface for "complex" fixtures. You can’t repatch in between programming steps, that makes no sense whatsoever, you're moving the foundations of the house, hence what you observe. HTH Kevin

FLX with Wing in a flight case - cute! Standard flight case (looks like a Swan) or custom? Definitely interested to hear about your tablet setup.

FLX S24 doesn't have a monitor port to attach an external screen directly. However you can use the Monitor App - I've seen that noted on a similar thread. Here:

Hi Adrian, My setup is very similar to yours. Like you I run a cue stack for theatre/musical shows. In my case it's a couple of amateur groups which I've been active in, doing lighting and sound for the last 24 years (ouch!). I now own an FLX, having moved up from fully manual preset desks through small "modern" programmable desks like the Strand GSX and Zero88 Alcora and then Fat Frog, prior to FLX which I bought in late 2015. It would be unfair of me to say FLX is the best desk for your application as I admit to little experience of the current range of competitors desks. But for budget, features and support I think FLX pretty much ranks up there as one of the leading options if you're looking for a "proper" desk rather than a PC based solution. Support for LED and movers is ingrained in the desk, so it's not like they are "bolted on" features to an essentially generics-oriented desk (which if I was being cruel is how you could view say the Frog range or comparable desks of the 2000 era). Standard features like Move on Dark, tracking and triggered/released chases are what for me make FLX an easier desk to work with than say Fat Frog. Like any other product, FLX is not perfect and you will see many comments and aired frustrations on this Forum for features long awaited. However for sure, if this is a long term investment for you (or your theatre), it is a product relatively early in it's life and we expect many more years of feature additions and enhancements. Good luck! Kevin

I thought the global value (per playback*) was the only one, plus the per cue option to not move on dark a certain attribute (for quiet scenes). Sometimes I would like a ‘quick’ MOD if I’m generally using a slow global value. * Thanks Edward for reminding me this is per playback not overall global!

What did the designer want the output to look like? Surely they realise the blue and red fades won't finish together if they are of equal duration but a minute skewed! So they either have 1 minute of blue fade alone, or the blue fade is reduced to 4 minutes or... I sympathise with you! But you can't programme a requirement when the requester isn't even clear on what they want! I have similar experiences. Some directors are good at visualising what they want to achieve, others aren't. Others don't have a mental image of what they want a scene to look like.

Q: So on the last part your timeline mismatch by 1 minute as you say. In what way were you wanting to make them align? If you wanted to keep the red and blue independent, then on your red fade out you would only tag the red colour and for the blue fade up only tag the blue colour. I believe this would require the desk to be set "keep parameters separate" for colour (that's probably the default). In both cues the intensity is retained at 100% so the fading of the colours is via the colour channel not the intensity channel. 1. I've probably misunderstood your requirements! 2. Yes I'd struggle to do this too! 3. Edward will give us the proper recipe in a minute!

Edward - would you expect FLX S RigSync to be employed with the Chilli dimmers Stan has? (Or do you need more info on the exact model of the Chilli dimmers to answer this?).

Your venue sounds wonderful! Sounds to me like any of the FLX S or FLX series would do. But from the spec you give above your infrastructure seems well beyond that of a "basic" setting. Whilst I think FLX S24 (or S48) would work I think you could easily outgrow them because once your new venue is ready you will grow in ideas quickly and start bringing in more LED, movers and "intelligent" fixtures. Particularly you will start to need more than one universe of DMX. In which case I would suggest looking at the full FLX for the more "pro" interface and "grow" potential. In addition this point begs the question, is your refurb taking into account the move towards LED - i.e. adding in DMX (possibly ArtNet) and hard-power infrastructure as well as the dimming infrastructure? If nothing else, if this is not going in now, provision of mount locations for data equipment, power and cable trays/conduit would make sense. Kevin

The information on this page will help you: http://support.zero88.com/Consoles/FLX/1014413041/RGB-Colour-Mixing-on-Faders.htm Similar works for Position and Beamshape as it does for colour. There are other similar support topics here: http://support.zero88.com/Consoles/FLX-S/ HTH Kevin

Setup+UDK already offers Highlight in the selectable options for the UDK. The UDK needs to be truly unprogrammed, so use Delete UDK first.

FLX-S does not have a dedicated Blackout button. But you can assign any unprogrammed MFF to be a blackout fader (and possibly can the button be a blackout button?). Any unprogrammed / clean MFF, use Setup on it and Blackout should be one of the options. (Sorry this is a bit vague, I have FLX with the dedicated button/fader).

It's not free though. 400 of your finest Brexit pounds for the Solo version (I'm still smarting from that purchase...).

See this page: https://zero88.com/control/jester

Hi Rob, Welcome! I'm not aware of a setting to allow this. Edward will be along in a moment to correct me or offer a different solution! Kevin

Did the touch calibrate using the descriptions above? There are multiple drivers for Iiyama monitors - when on the calibrate screen if touch isn’t working then the screen tells you to press another key, Setup maybe, I can’t remember. Have you seen/tried this? Are you on latest software 7.9.7?

Once you're used to doing it, creating your own fixtures is pretty easy. I've created all of my own, just so I know what is in them and that they have all of the information like gobo images and Detail in them. Also it's not uncommon for the DMX map to not match the fixture behaviour (particularly on the more budget brands) and by writing the fixture definition I can play with the fixture and ensure it all matches. However at this point, sounds like you should get the Zero88 guys to write them, then you could load them into the Fixture Editor software and "reverse engineer them" to see how they are constructed from the information in the manual, then you're better educated to write your own. Good luck! Kevin

Unless you know the fixture definitions already exist in the ZerOS library for these fixtures in the modes you require, you should get this information to the Zero88 chaps ASAP otherwise you'll make unproductive progress until you have them. In library issue 40 I don't see the Asteroid or any Varytec Hero Spot60. See the following link. Unless you are already experienced creating your own fixture definitions you will use Option 3, and you will need to provide the product manual (including the DMX map) and specify which modes you require - the Zero88 guys may build them all but if you are in a hurry or they are complex, it's best to say which ones are a priority for you. https://zero88.com/library#support Here's a starter for you: http://cdb.s3.amazonaws.com/ItemRelatedFiles/8864/asteroid_1200.pdf

@kinous is it worth you elaborating a little more on this 64 channel fixture? Edward can give you some more targeted advice on handling such a device and the pros and cons of the different approaches. I’m suspecting it might be a multi-cell device.

An unexpanded FLX S24 is limited on fixture count (48) and number of DMX channels (512). So you could have one fixture that used all 512 DMX channels if you had such a perverse beast. Wing doesn't change how many fixtures/DMX channels the desk allows it just gives you more "control surface" i.e. knobs. So you could have up to 8 of your 64-channel fixtures - that due to the number of DMX channels limited to 512 (512/64=8). FLX S24 is upgradeable to 2 Universes (2*512=1024 DMX channels) - but this costs money. https://www.zero88.com/control/flxs

Yes

Sounds like Keith has probably hit the nail on the head! Have you got the Frog Manual? Also make sure you have the latest software on there, 10.12. Everything you need is here: https://www.zero88.com/control/frog I highly recommend the FrogOS Release Notes document after you've got the general gist of the console from the main manual. And of course, just post on this Forum, there are plenty of experienced Frog-range users here (including me) who can help out. Good luck! Kevin

Yes it does since the battery regulates the voltage to the static RAM chip, whose supply will otherwise rise to around 15V when it should be 5V. Also you'll probably find that at least one of the PCB tracks under the battery has been eaten away so you'll need to reinstate the connection with some mod wire. Sometimes if the damage is bad these can be unrepairable though. Depends if you caught it quickly enough. There are some threads from me or Ian Knight on this somewhere on this Forum. I'll try to find... If you want a repair considered, then Ian is your man for this kit: http://www.serviceguy.co.uk/zero88-legacy-service-repair/ ETA: See this one for a start:

CPC now do the Betapack 2 Bulgin FX0415/S fuseholder: FF01327 https://cpc.farnell.com/bulgin/fx0415-s/11-4-screw-cap-release-holder/dp/FF01327?st=Bulgin FX0415 and the HRC 10A fuses: https://cpc.farnell.com/siba/70-065-63-10a/fuse-quick-blow-10a/dp/FF02367